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Matter, a GV-backed read-it-later app that competes broadly with apps like Pocket and Instapaper, although with extra of a deal with studying suggestions, is at this time launching a brand new method to make use of its app. The corporate this morning is debuting “Readable Podcasts,” a function that may allow you to save favourite podcasts and transcribe their audio to textual content. By doing so, you should utilize Matter’s different instruments to work together with the podcast content material as you’d a saved article, together with by doing issues like highlighting, taking notes, and sharing quotes.
As you hearken to the podcast, the audio transcript and textual content are stored in sync so you’ll be able to seamlessly change backwards and forwards between listening and studying. This lets you pause the podcast if you wish to re-read a specific part or search for one thing the podcast hosts have been discussing.
Or, for those who’re attempting to get by means of a dense podcast extra shortly, the function would help you skim the transcript so you might simply bounce to the important thing areas of curiosity, as a substitute of getting to fast-forward or hearken to the audio at a quicker pace.
In line with Matter co-founder Ben Springwater, the brand new function is powered by the mixture of a third-party transcription service together with Matter’s personal proprietary system to label audio system and guarantee transcript high quality.
What’s extra, customers don’t have to surrender their favourite podcast app in an effort to use the brand new performance. That’s, as a substitute of subscribing to a podcast in Matter itself, you’ll as a substitute share the podcast you wish to transcribe out of your current podcast app utilizing the Save extension from the iOS Share Sheet. At launch, Matter helps Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Castro, and Pocket Casts.
As soon as shared to Matter, the podcast is transcribed to textual content and could be interacted with simply as for those who had saved an article for later studying. This not solely helps those that don’t have time to hearken to a present or who wish to annotate the fabric, it additionally unlocks the content material present in audio, making it accessible to those that aren’t auditory learners or who’re hearing-impaired.
Picture Credit: Matter
The app helps quite a lot of languages, together with English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Hindi, Japanese, Chinese language, Finnish, Korean, Polish, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.
“Podcasts are a gateway to professional data,” mentioned Springwater, in saying the launch. “However audio is ephemeral, and far of that data slips away. Readable Podcasts unlocks the data in podcasts for the primary time.”
Since closing on its $7 million Sequence A in 2021, Matter has grown to “tens of 1000’s” lively customers and 1000’s of paying subscribers for its premium product. For $7.99 per thirty days or $59.99 per 12 months, Matter subscribers can do issues like hearken to articles at 2x pace in realistic-sounding voices, combine Matter with their notes apps, Kindle, Gmail, and different companies, and now, leverage superior AI transcriptions for each podcasts and YouTube.
The corporate doesn’t but assist personal podcast feeds, however says that function is within the works. Nevertheless, it’s not in a position to transcribe from Spotify exclusives, as they’re not open entry, it says.
Matter’s app is offered for iOS and through an internet browser on Chrome, Safari, and Firefox.
